“Neil Plucks reflection on a moment of history”

The photo above captures a moment in the history of Pluck’s Engineering, showcasing the original workshop in Rakaia with my father, Graham Pluck, in the background, and myself, Neil Pluck (on the back of the roller) along with my younger brother in the foreground. Myself, Neil Pluck (and my wife Lynley) are now the current owners of Pluck’s Engineering.

The photo above captures a moment in the history of Pluck’s Engineering, showcasing the original workshop in Rakaia with my father, Graham Pluck, in the background, and myself, Neil Pluck (on the back of the roller) along with my younger brother in the foreground. Myself, Neil Pluck (and my wife Lynley) are now the current owners of Pluck’s Engineering.

This picture was taken in the 1960s and features an 8ft wide x 4ft6” diameter x ½” plate roller, which was a big deal. To this day, most of our rollers are still in excellent working condition, as occasionally we see one of them in our workshop for a quick repair or tidy up. As a family-owned business, we have accumulated over 55 years of experience in manufacturing and listening to, and acting on, our customers’ feedback. This knowledge has allowed us to create a long-lasting intergenerational farm implement that has stood the test of time.

We are proud to see our rollers from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s being passed down to the third generation of ownership and still being used today. In the 1980s, we recognised a need for a bigger, heavier roller as farming tractors grew in size and horsepower. We took advantage of a good supply of second-hand heavy plate steel that became available for a short period in the 80s and developed the large diameter roller with a huge one-piece axle, heavy bearings, and sleeves that last over 25 years. We also developed a unique technique to fit and weld together the drum end plates and axle centre tube, ensuring they will not crack under the new bigger loads these huge rollers produced, which has been proven to last generations trouble free.

Additionally, we pay careful attention to proper proven technical fitting and welding standards, hence our drum and circular end plates fit snugly together before any welding takes place, and our welding technique is to the NZ Welding standards multiple pass textbook.